Departure and Arrival, Part I: The Journey

Oh, the price we pay for adventures.

I'm sitting here in the hostel, down in the common area so that I might not be tempted so much by my bed upstairs. It's taking all of my will power not to go to sleep - sleep now means a fucked up schedule later, and I'd rather just be more or less back on track by tomorrow. Thus, I'm forcing myself to stay awake, for another 2 hours at the very least, and I'm aiding myself in this endeavor by doing such things as working on this blog post and importing the handful of photos I was able to take today.

Why so tired? Well, obviously it's been a long trip. But I look back at the last 30-some-odd hours, (we can subtract the 3 or 4 of those during which I was actually sleeping) and I see a day so full that it amazes me that I'm not even more dead on my feet than I am now. Departing Boston, as predicted, was difficult. The week or so that I had there before leaving was excellently satisfying, I feel that I was able to see the people I wanted to see and do the things that I wanted to do, and the send-off from all of my friends was lovely in many ways. However, saying goodbye was harder than it has been in the past, so as satisfying as these days might have been, they were emotionally exhausting as well. I can count many moments where I was close to tears this past day or two, and several where those tears actually broke through. Whatever, hopefully most of that's behind us now. Just goes to show all of you how much you'll be missed.

The trip up to Logan and the boarding process went exceptionally smooth, no small thanks to Alex's accompaniment and a quick drink at the bar before heading through security. The timing was perfect, I was boarding no less than 10 minutes after re-donning my shoes and pack. After a few last-minute calls on-board the plane, we were off. The flight was smooth but predictably I was unable to get any sleep at all. Luckily, Aer Lingus has a wonderful on-flight entertainment. I landed in Shannon, Ireland at 5:20 am (12:20 in Boston) after having indulged in quite a few episodes of the first season of Mad Men.

Chilling in Shannon Airport for the hour or so before we boarded our flight to Dublin was boring and a bit depressing. The airport, already pretty run-down and unimpressive, was completely barren at that hour of the morning. I was thirsty as hell but didn't have any Euro coins to get anything from the vending machines, the only operating sources of refreshment at the time. WiFi wasn't working, I had no phone, no games, and my eyes hurt too much from the dry air of the plane to read anything. But soon enough we'd boarded again, the 40-50 passengers doing nothing at all to fill the huge trans-Atlantic Airbus they had us on for the 35 minute flight across the country to Dublin. What a small country it is when you can fly clear across the whole thing in less than 40 minutes!

Exhaustion had hit. If the flight had been longer than it was, I feel that even I would have been able to crash. We landed and the walk clear across the airport to Immigration Control felt brutal with my heavy backpack and even heavier-feeling legs. Dublin International seemed nearly as abandoned as Shannon, and there was no line to wait in to go through immigration, just the usual hoops to jump through and an unclear and ominous warning from the officer that the hostel I was staying in was in a "dodgy" area.

My bags were on the belt just as I walked up to the claim, and then customs was non-existent. When I asked the only airport official standing in the area what I needed to do, she responded, "Nothing, unless you've got something" with a warm smile and wink and waved me through. I was still reeling from this encounter when the doors opened and finally I was out in the lobby.

Thanks to the lack of lines, waiting, customs, and general humanity, I was through quite a bit earlier than expected, and it was a little while before Don, my program director, arrived to meet me. I had met Don once, months before, when I was working for the OISP and he was doing a visit to some of his partner universities in Boston, Northeastern obviously being one of them. I liked him then, and after spending some time with him this morning I like him even more now. I can only hope that such a funny, friendly, and helpful man like Don is the standard here in Dublin, although I find that rather hard to believe. Time will tell.

Well, the common area is filling up, my computer battery is dying down, and the loud house music playing mixed with the many shouted languages around me is becoming an assault on my tired senses. Time to finish up for now, and I'll have Part II of this first post (in Ireland) later on. Thanks for reading and as always, I love you all.